"The Senate Appropriations Committee took a welcome and long-overdue step today toward fair and equal treatment of women who volunteer to serve their country in the Peace Corps by advancing a bill that will give them the same abortion coverage as other women who get their health insurance from the federal government.

Peace Corps volunteers are one of the last groups of women without coverage of abortion care in cases of rape, incest, or life endangerment, and that’s wrong. This glaring inequity also poses dangers, in particular because 62 percent of Peace Corps volunteers are women. There is absolutely no reason Peace Corps volunteers should not receive the same protections as other women who rely on the government for their coverage.

The Senate needs to stand up for female Peace Corps volunteers and pass this language unchanged."

The National Partnership for Women & Families is a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy group dedicated to promoting fairness in the workplace, access to quality health care and policies that help women and men meet the dual demands of work and family. More information is available at www.NationalPartnership.org.